


Counting Cobwebs

by mugsandpugs



Series: Dad Logan [5]
Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Gen, Halloween, Haunted Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: He could be forgiven for missing yet another child sneaking into the house, shorter than the rest; her clothes dirtied and tattered, her face obscured by a plastic rabbit mask. There were too many sights, scents, and sounds for even the Wolverine's animal senses to keep track of them all.
Relationships: Lance Alvers/Pietro Maximoff, Laura Kinney & Logan
Series: Dad Logan [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/791520
Comments: 9
Kudos: 46





	Counting Cobwebs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishouldwritethatdown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/gifts).



> This has been sitting, unfinished, in my drafts, for over two years now... All because ishouldwritethatdown requested I include Laura in the TMBTP universe. Anyway... It's here now!

_"Darkness falls across the land..."_

"Todd, I'm busy."

_"The midnight hour is close at hand!"_

"It's barely four!"

_"Creatures crawl in search of blood... To terrorize y'all's neighborhood!"_

Lance sighed as Todd moonwalked from behind an aisle to the orchestral swell of _Thriller,_ socked feet skidding over tiled floor. The toad wore a white jacket with tiny round mirrors sewn into the padded shoulders, and an enormous pair of wraparound sunglasses. The price tags rattled.

"Ignore him," Lance advised the cashier, whose pumpkin-strewn station he stood before. She should be long used to the Brotherhood's theatrics. They'd visited the temporary Halloween store at least a dozen times since it'd opened the month prior. Now that the big day was upon them, the store was bustling with last-minute parents snapping up swords for their princesses and tiaras for their pirates.

Lance glared at Todd, who was still moonwalking. Badly. "You're supposed to be watching Wanda," he reminded his housemate. "Before she tries to buy another—"

It was too late. Wanda, sporting a fuzzy, cat-eared headband, approached the cashier. "I need these," she announced. She bent over the station, exposing the barcode stuck to one of the ears. The cashier, who'd been working retail all season, didn't react aside from pointing her scanner at the barcode, which beeped.

Lance groaned. _"Wanda..._ You're already a doctor-ninja-witch-cowboy. Do you really _need_ to be a cat, too?"

"Yes." To the cashier, she explained, "I was in an asylum for seven years. Logan says I'm allowed to celebrate all holidays to the fullest."

The cashier didn't so much as blink. "That's nice." To Lance, she asked, "Was there anything else?"

Lance brightened, nodding at the cooler just behind the employee's station. "Three pounds of dry ice. Uh, please."

"I'll need to see some ID."

This was the opportunity Lance had been waiting for, ever since his eighteenth birthday the week prior. Proudly pulling the driver's license from his wallet, he passed it over and tried to look mature. He kept offering to buy cigars for Logan. Because Logan had never taken him up on the offer, this was his first taste of true adult power.

The cashier glanced at the Avalanche's year of birth, confirmed that he was a _Legal Adult,_ and handed the plastic back to the boy before turning to collect the ice. Lance was so busy feeling grown-up that he almost forgot to tell Todd to take the jacket and sunglasses off before paying for the ice and ears. "You should get a job," he grumbled at Wanda, counting out the cash.

"On all forms, my occupation is 'student'," Wanda, who had just begun taking online classes, replied primly. 

* * *

Cobwebs draped every surface of the house. Stringed lights in brightest green and violet were their only illumination both upstairs and down, save only for the kitchen. It was here that Lance, Todd, and Wanda congregated with the rest of the family.

"Quit blinking," Pietro chastised Fred, straddling a kitchen chair and gripping the larger mutant’s face. Pietro’s stage makeup was spread before them, consuming all table space with powders and creams.

"I don't think Frankenstein _needs_ contacts," Fred protested, averting his face from the milky-white lenses aimed for his eyes.

"Frankenstein's _monster._ Get it right. And of course he does; he’s made of dead guys."

"But who was the real monster in that story?" Fred replied sagely, again ducking the quick fingers. "The big guy everybody picked on, or his dad who made ‘im and abandoned 'im?"

"Ooh!" Todd hooted. "Freddie-bear over here, askin' the real questions." He hopped onto the kitchen counter, covered in tiny pumpkins both orange and white, and reached into the cabinet for a cereal box.

"No way, Samantha." Logan, who had been at the stove stirring seasoned beef in a frying pan, caught his smallest son around the waist. "You'll spoil yer appetite, and dinner is almost ready."

"Her name is _Samara,_ pops," Todd whined, dangling, defeated, from his guardian's thick arm. "Man, y’all _never_ pay attention to movies!"

Lance, who tried desperately _not_ to think about the month's worth of creepy horror films Todd had terrorized them with, repressed a shudder. It wasn’t that he was _scared_ of them, obviously! They just… Made it hard to sleep, sometimes. How Todd and Wanda always managed to _laugh_ at all the ooey-gooey-gory bits baffled him to no end.

Pietro finally gave up on the contact lenses and instead set to sticking prosthetics on Fred's forehead, to make it bulge. It looked pretty realistic once Pietro got to blending patchy, sickly-green makeup; painting 'stitches' here and there to give Fred a rotted, sewn-together appearance. The guy had a real talent for cosmetics and practical effects.

"Will you help me with my fur?" Lance asked as Pietro adjusted the wobbly skin of Fred's bald cap. 

Pietro regarded him, tapping a long-handled brush against his chin. "What'll you give me if I do?"

"Tro. I'm your _boyfriend."_

"Yeah, but you know what they say. If you're good at something, never do it for free."

"That's what _she_ said!" Todd crowed, immediately followed by a grumbled complaint when Logan set him down in the empty kitchen sink and resumed stirring his beef.

* * *

Halloween in Bayville had arrived at last, with the full moon high in the ink-black sky; paper lanterns strung between each telephone pole lighting the path for each of the little ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties to gather treats and dispense tricks in safety.

"What are you supposed to be?" Pietro asked dubiously, looking Logan up and down from his oversized denim overalls; his flannel shirt and straw hat and big white gloves. He appeared to be leaking straw.

Logan pulled a long sprig of wheat from his mouth to respond, "A scarecrow. Obviously."  
  
"Aren't scarecrows supposed to be tall?"

The Bayville Brotherhood of Mutants' house (newly rebuilt!) was a flurry of last-minute activity. Speakers were wired to emit music and spooky noises. Boys took their places. Wanda added several new pieces to her costume. Fluffernutter, in his dragon costume, solemnly sat sentinel at the top of the stairwell, ready to spring on passers by.

Fred lifted the filmy veil that covered Wanda's face. "What's this?" he asked.

"I am a bride-cat-doctor-ninja-witch-cowboy," she said, reaching to grab her cat ears before they toppled from her stetson hat. Her sunglasses slid down her nose. "I suppose you have to kiss me now."

Fred's blush was so dark that it burned through his heavy Frankenstein makeup.

Guests started arriving a hair shy of seven. Children, at first; little teenyboppers from Fred's library job. Some vampires and mermaids looked alarmed by his excellent makeup, but the moment he smiled, they knew it was their favorite reader ushering them inside. He led them, and their bemused parents, to the sofa in the living room, where everyone was given cider and doughnuts while Fred read aloud from _"The Littlest Ghost."_

Of course trick-or-treaters passed by; kids and their parents or teenage siblings; intrigued by the decorations and music; the games in the front lawn. Corn-hole and darts and cake walks and 'fishing' behind a tarp; big crock-pots of chili and cider bubbling on a table. Dry ice was everywhere, fizzing away in hidden cauldrons. They came for the candy and stayed for the fun, sitting on bales of hay and chattering with friends.

"Howdy," Logan grunted to them all, tossing full-sized candy bars into their buckets. "Nice to meet the new neighbors." Whenever anyone muttered about a peanut allergy, he offered them Twizzlers; Starbursts; a wiggly plastic toy instead.

A truck full of X-brats nyoomed by, paused, and reversed. They spilled out with grins and waggling eyebrows, helping themselves to hot dogs and baked potatoes while Logan halfheartedly batted them away. "That's for the guests, ya gluttons!"

"Aw, Lo-Lo; it's like you don't even love us..."

Some kids from school made the rounds; later than everyone else, all pretending they were too old and too 'cool' to trick-or-treat; all fooling nobody. The childlike glee on even the most jaded teenager's face was a joy to behold.

"Wanna check out the house?" Logan offered, tossing a thumb over his shoulder. "Follow the arrows."

He could be forgiven for missing yet another child sneaking into the house, shorter than the rest; her clothes dirtied and tattered, her face obscured by a plastic rabbit mask. There were too many sights, scents, and sounds for even the Wolverine's animal senses to keep track of them all.

The gaggle of teens, giggling and clutching one another's hands, capes, tails, or candy buckets, tiptoed into the gorgeous new house, looking around at the bevy of cobwebs and skeletons. Hidden speakers cackled and moaned. A girl, reaching into a candy basket, shrieked and then laughed when a plastic hand descended to clasp her own.

Fred, in his reading nook, paused his dramatic retelling of _"The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything"_ to wave at them all, before pointing towards the dark, ominous staircase. Like the three Billy Goats Gruff, trip-trapping on a troll's bridge, the teens dared one another to ascend, though creepy-crawlies awaited on every step. A furry, clawed hand tickled someone's ankle. A dark-haired figure scuttled up the wall, just out of sight.

Uncertain, they walked towards the balcony doors at the end of the hallway, into which the moon shone bright. Before they could reach it, a door to their left creaked open. 

"Hello?" Called a girl, Katie, at the front of the group.

Her friend squeezed her hand, shaking her head. "Don't open it, Katie!"

But Katie's mind was made up. With her head held high, she pulled the door the rest of the way open, and the group all stared into a mostly empty room. The only light came from a small television on the floor, projecting a snowfall of static. It was just bright enough to illuminate the human-sized anatomic models all around; one stripped of skin; the other, muscle. The third was only a red and blue map of nerves leading up to naked eyeballs; a pink, exposed brain.

And in the center of them all crouched a small figure in a white dress, face obscured by lank, black hair.

 _"Seven days,"_ whispered the figure, its voice a chilling rasp, before launching itself at the group. It scuttling in a fast crabwalk; belly to the ceiling, hands and bare, webbed feet slapping the wooden floors. Katie shrieked like an opera singer and slammed the door shut just in the nick of time; the creature hit the door and then began pounding on it, crooning. "Let me oooout! Let me _ooooout!"_

"Let's get out of here!" Katie cried, turning to lead the group to safety, only to see a huge, hairy wolfman ascending the stairs, eyes glowing yellow and mean. When he stretched his arms up and howled, revealing a mouthful of jagged fangs, the walls around them quaked. Pictures hanging on the walls clattered to the floor. Each teen present was too startled to notice the lack of glass inside.

Turning the other way, the group ran towards the balcony, where sheer sheets blew in a breeze. Had the doors been open, before? Just when all hope appeared lost, an unlikely savior arrived in the form of a bride-cat-doctor-ninja-witch-cowboy. Tossing her lab coat like a cape, she dove between the group and the encroaching wolf, pointing her magic wand at him in fierce intensity. "Back, foul beast!"

The group watched, eyes enormous, as the hero of all trades drove their snarling attacker away, further down the hallway, back to the stairs. "Howdy!" was her battle cry. "Meow! Til death do us part!"

All eyes were so fixed on the spectacle that they almost, _almost_ missed what was happening just behind them. If Katie Baxter hadn't turned her head, hadn't seen the ghastly ghost at the balcony, she wouldn't have had time to scream. Oh, but she screamed bloody murder when the grim spectre raced inside, fast as lightning, and snatched her off her feet! "Katie!" her friends cried. _"Katie!"_

But Katie, and the ghost, were gone; vanished with the wind.

Upon the roof, Quicksilver grinned and offered both hands to his theater-club friend. Grinning just as brightly, Katie high-fived him back. "We got 'em good!"

"You screamed like a banshee!" he praised.

"Thank you! I've been practicing!"

This made Pietro grin ghoulishly, the navy-blue of his lipstain making his teeth appear all the whiter. Holding onto her hand, he guided her to a blow-up slide set up at the back of the house; the kind of slide used to make exits from airplane crashes. Helping her keep her balance, he got her safely on the slide. She whooped and cheered all the way down.

Landing in the backyard, she walked around the pool and through the gate, rejoining the party — and the new group of teens about to experience the Mutant House of Horrors — in the front yard.

Pietro, determined to get one last good scare in, returned to the balcony doors, jaw dropped, his arms spread wide in ghostly mourning. _"Ooooohhhh..."_ he moaned. _"Woooo..."_

But amidst the shrieks and giggles, there was one girl who was not moved. Stepping protectively before the group, and Wanda, the girl ripped off her rabbit mask and stared him down with intense eyes. Intense, _familiar_ eyes.

Before he could work out where he knew her from, she thrust a fist, bearing a pair of shiny claws, into his face. "No more kidnapping," she warned, and suddenly Pietro knew _exactly_ who she reminded him of. Gulping at the brush of adamantium to his Adam's apple, he fumbled in his tattered sheets for a most un-ghostlike Walkie Talkie. The young girl didn't miss a single move as he held down a button and spoke, voice shaky.

"Ghost-Busted to Papa Crow; I repeat, Ghost-Busted to Papa Crow; do you read me? Over."

There was a brush of static, followed by Logan's flat voice: _"What."_

"I'm experiencing a 10-34 up here. Over."

A deep sigh. _"Can you_ please _speak English, Sonic?"_

Oh, for the _love..._ Pietro had emailed Logan, and all the guys, a list of CB codes for this very reason! Did _nobody_ do their homework? Was this the group of (non) professionals he was (not) being paid to work with?! "There is a very short child threatening me with claws that look significantly like yours, is _what._ That clear enough for you, old man? Over."

"Did you say a 10-34, P?" Lance, pulling drool-covered fangs from his mouth, pushed through the crowd at the balcony. He froze when he saw what was happening; how precariously close Pietro stood to the drop-off point of no return. "Hey kid, can you quit—"

The child demonstrated that she had claws in _both_ hands, aiming the second pair at Lance's chest. "Stand back, Wolfman!"

Wanda, front and center in the crowd, fished a mini Snickers bar out from her cleavage, unwrapped it, and ate it, her wide eyes never once leaving the scene before her. Someone scratched their head. Someone else coughed. "Is anything gonna happen?" A third person whispered.

Just when things were growing painfully awkward, Logan huffed and puffed his way up the stairs, dropping straw and hay with every step. "Kid," he called, and every person present turned to look at him.

 _"My_ kid, I mean."

Now only Lance, Wanda, and Pietro held his gaze.

"My _short_ kid with the _claws._ Laura."

"Oh." The girl turned to him, but didn't lower either of her arms. When Pietro attempted to duck underneath, the claws followed him, as though she had a second pair of eyes under her thick hair. Maybe she did. "The wolfman was threatening these civilians. And this ghost began kidnapping them."

“I wasn’t _kidnapping_ anyone!” Pietro protested, feeling some of his pancake makeup flake off. “Katie’s _fine;_ she’s probably back at the party stuffing candy in her face.”

Logan sighed. "It's just Halloween, Toothpicks. You know 'bout Halloween, right?"

For one strange moment, Lance wondered whether she did. There was something in this girl that reminded him of Wanda, when she'd first showed up to the Brotherhood house. She'd been so strange those first few months, as though everything — the food, the books, the company — were all brand spanking new.

But then she, Laura, ducked her head, the rabbit mask still hanging from her neck where she'd pulled it down. Her shoulder-length hair, frayed at the ends, fell to cover her eyes. "I know what Halloween is. I only lost track of the days while I was walking here."

She sheathed her "toothpicks." Pietro, relieved, zipped nervously around her and clung to Lance's side.

Addressing the group, Logan ushered them all towards the stairs. "A'right; out with you. A family issue just came up. Rocky, go get your brothers."

* * *

"So she's your _clone?!_ Dude!" Todd, having ditched his Samara wig, sat on the kitchen table with webbed feet dangling. "How's that even possible, if she's a girl?"

"Trans people exist, Frogger," Logan replied dismissively. He didn't elaborate _which_ Wolverine was trans, and neither did Laura.

Chagrined, Todd ducked his head. "Fair. Still, you didn't _tell_ us you had a kid, pops!"

Laura paused her ravenous eating. She was on her third bowl of chili, and showed no signs of stopping. Apparently she'd journeyed for days to find their house, sleeping in the woods whenever she got tired. That certainly explained the state of her clothes... And her hygiene.

"I didn't know, either," she told Logan in her flat little voice. "I didn't know you'd become a father."

Logan rubbed the back of his neck, guilty. "I should've told you. You're a hard girl to find. But, yeah... I adopted these punks last spring."

Laura looked around the table, taking in the curious faces. "All of them..."

"Technically not us," Wanda explained, nudging her brother. "We just live here."

"Still my kids," Logan grumped. He leaned across the table to refill Laura's water glass, and she drank loudly, breathing hard between gulps. Pietro tried not to wince at her bad table manners. Like Logan, she was just a bit... _Feral._

"Is Laura going to live with us?" Wanda asked.

Everyone exchanged a _look._ Finally, Logan said, "she's welcome to, if she wants. What do you think, Toothpicks?"

With eyes on her plate, Laura muttered something too quiet to hear.

"Speak up," Logan encouraged.

"I said that I want to!" she shouted, meeting his eyes. "I have nowhere else to go!"

Fred, used to working with children, tried to play the peacemaker. "We have two guest bedrooms, Laura. You can choose the one you like, and make it yours."

Laura seemed, Wanda thought, hyper-aware of her surroundings at all times, like she was forever prepared for an attack. "Okay," she agreed, and shoved her spoon into her mouth. "Please stop looking at me now." 

* * *

"I don't want a bath," Laura muttered when Wanda first suggested it.

Wanda rather liked baths, but knew they bothered Todd's skin. And she also knew that nervous people did not like to feel naked; vulnerable. "Okay," she agreed. "But if you change your mind, here is the main bathroom. My things are in the third drawer, if you need to borrow them."

They walked past that door without opening it, and to another one just down the hall. "This is my room," Wanda explained, pushing inside.

Laura looked around the cozy space, illuminated by lava lamps and glow-in-the-dark stars. She failed to mask her curiosity with indifference. Wanda hid her smile and busied herself at the dresser, giving Laura a chance to look at the shelves of books; the stuffed animals; the oddities she'd found on her adventures. Rocks; feathers; rodent bones...

"There are still people on your front lawn," Laura pointed out the window, and Wanda looked, too. The party had died down, but there were still groups enjoying the last of the free food.

"That's alright," Wanda replied. "Our neighbors are nice. It's safe here."

Laura wasn't convinced, but she allowed herself to be distracted by a selection of pajamas. The first pair, she discarded immediately. "I don't like the way it feels."

"I'm texture sensitive, too," Wanda nodded. "Velvet and corduroy are a nightmare."

For a moment, she thought the sullen little girl might smile. She turned to the rest of the pajamas, instead, deciding on a cotton t-shirt and a loose pair of shorts.

"Good choice. Do you need some friends?" Wanda pointed to the stuffed animals.

She thought Laura would laugh at the offer. Instead, the child took it seriously. After looking all of the 'friends' over, she pulled down a triceratops and a cowfish.

"Good choice," Wanda repeated. "You should take some books, too. Have you read Nancy Drew?" 

* * *

When Logan tapped on the door of the guest room, the voices inside fell silent.

"It's me," he called. "Can I come in?"

There was a pause. Then, "you may."

He turned the door handle, wincing when it squeaked. Even brand new houses had their problems. He gave both girls a smile when he found them on the big guest bed, both wearing pajamas, heads bent together over a thrifted copy of _"The Secret of the Old Clock"_ that Wanda had been reading aloud.

Squeezing a toy dinosaur in her arms, Laura looked every bit the child she was meant to be, and not the hardened soldier her abusive creators had turned her into.

Logan sat in a chair at the foot of Laura's bed, looking his clone over. She returned his stare, unabashed. As always, he wondered what she sought in him... A family? An understanding of her origins? Merely a safe place to spend the night?

She broke the silence first. "I did what I set out to do."

Logan tried not to let his surprise show. What she'd sought was vengeance against their creators. Had she truly achieved that, when Logan could not? _How?!_ She was such a little thing...

_Don't underestimate anyone, old man._

Instead, he tried to understand what she was telling him. "You finished your mission, and now you want to come home."

That last word got a barely-noticeable flinch out of her, and Logan understood. To a Wolverine, 'home' was an alien concept. Something for other people; distant and unachievable as a fairy tale. He had felt the same way, for so very long...

Gently, he touched the blanketed lump that was her foot. "This is my home," he explained. He gestured to Wanda with a jerk of his chin. "This is my family. And you... You're welcome to all of it. S'nice to have a place where you're wanted."

"I..." Laura repeated softly, trying the words on like a Halloween costume. "Am. Wanted?"

"Yes," Logan promised.

"Yes," Wanda echoed, snuggling against Laura's side under the thick duvet. If anyone knew what it was like to be unwanted, it was Logan's five kids.

Motion in the doorway drew both Wolverines' eyes, and they watched a curious gray cat peek at them before hiding again.

Logan returned his attention to Laura. "If you're still here tomorrow morning, we can buy stuff for you. Clothes; toys; whatever. Could even get you signed up for some online classes with Wanda.

"I enjoy school very much," Wanda told the child. "I can't decide whether to be a nutritionist, a veterinarian, an astrophysicist, or a long-haul trucker. They all have their merits."

Logan wasn't surprised to see panic battling the intrigue in Laura's eyes. He pumped the brakes. "But first, clothes. That's it, kiddo; and you can pick 'em all out for yourself. One baby step at a time, yeah?"

The cat in the doorway was back, his butt waggling in a way Logan knew all too well. Sure enough, Fluffer pounced onto the bed and made himself at home, stomping on the girls' organs, happy as a pig in mud. Laura watched in amazement as he flopped and got to purring, the spoiled thing.

"Look at that," Wanda said, smiling so huge her true-blue eyes disappeared behind the pudge of her cheeks. "He already loves you."

Laura cautiously poked Fluffer before snatching her hand back, looking as though she expected a bite.

Wanda gave the fat cat a stroke, showing Laura how he liked it; down the spine only once, followed by gentle scritches between his ears and beneath his chin. Soon enough, Laura was copying the older girl, and Fluffernutter purred louder than Logan's bike.

"I will stay tonight," Laura decided, her words directed at Logan although her eyes were still on the cat. "I would like to stay longer. I just... Don't know how to."

"None of us came here knowing how to stay in a home; to be a family," he agreed, nodding. "We do the best we can, a little every day. Can't wait to see you in the morning, sunshine."

He stood and squeezed her ankle, giving it a pat before heading for the door. "If you need anything in the middle of the night, make sure to go bother Rocky. Stand by his bed an’ breathe on his face a while; that ought’a wake him up.”

"I will."

From across the hall, they heard Lance's muffled, outraged, _"hey!"_

Logan didn't realize it, but in that moment, his and Laura's tiny, mischievous smiles were exactly the same.

"G'night, Toothpicks. Night, Sparkles," he bade the girls. "Sleep tight. Happy Halloween."

_~ fin ~_


End file.
